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Kidlat Tahimik

Kidlat Tahimik

Directing

Biography

Eric de Guia (born October 3, 1942 in Baguio City, Philippines), better known as Kidlat Tahimik (a Tagalog translation of "silent lightning"), is a film director, writer and actor whose films are commonly associated with the Third Cinemamovement through their critiques of neocolonialism. One of the most prominent names in the Filipino film industry, he has garnered various accolades locally and internationally, including a Plaridel honorarium for Independent Cinema. He is dubbed by fellow filmmakers and critics as the "Father of Philippine Independent Cinema".

Known For

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
7.3

The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

1974
José Rizal
9.0

Accused of treason, Dr. Jose P. Rizal awaits trial and meets with his colonial government-appointed counsel, Luis Taviel de Andrade. The two build the case and arguments for the defense as significant events in the central figure's life prior to his incarceration unfold. Upon hearing Rizal's life story, Taviel begins to realize that the accused not just is innocent but exhibits in fact all the qualities of an extraordinary man. When the mock trial unreels, Taviel is all set to act as the prime advocate for his client as Rizal himself is about to give an earth-moving speech to defend his honor and address his countrymen. Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities have worked out the vast political machinery to ensure a guilty verdict. A revolution waits in the wings.

José Rizal

1998
Perfumed Nightmare
7.3

Kidlat, a Filipino jeepney driver, is fascinated by the idea of the American space programme and by Western society as a whole. When he moves to Paris, disillusionment sets in as his dreams are gradually shattered.

Perfumed Nightmare

1979
Journey
N/A

This is a Filipino omnibus film about three different journeys.

Journey

2019
Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy?
7.5

Stuck in the German lands of “Yodelburg,” our hero Kidlat dreams of space and muses on humanity’s endless capacity for creativity, whether on the moon or at home in the Philippines. A delightful, self-proclaimed “third-world space spectacle.”

Who Invented The Yoyo? Who Invented The Moon Buggy?

1979
A Movie Capital
6.0

This film is a record of the first Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. It reflects the various ways the festival was given shape by nascent global changes embodied by Perestroika, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and many other contemporaneous events.

A Movie Capital

1991
Cinemartyrs
N/A

A young filmmaker is bent on recreating forgotten massacres from Philippine history, but when she begins shooting at a site where 1,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered, angry spirits are awakened and the lives of her team and the local villagers are put in peril.

Cinemartyrs

2025
Philippine New Wave: This Is Not a Film Movement
4.8

Documentary profiling the directors involved in the loose Philippine New Wave filmmaking movement.

Philippine New Wave: This Is Not a Film Movement

2010
First Light
N/A

An elderly nun witnesses a young construction worker's fatal accident, compelling her to question the ethical principles of the institution she has devoted her life to.

First Light

2026
I am Blushing
9.0

"I am blushing" - Swedish comedy about a film crew traveling to the Philippines to find environments for a movie.

I am Blushing

1981
Illogical Patterns of a Logical Parallelism
N/A

A silent film by Jet Leyco.

Illogical Patterns of a Logical Parallelism

2011
BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI
N/A

As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux VI, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy. Shot on 16mm (1979–1980s) and video (1990s–2017).

BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment Redux VI

2017
Shaman Showman: The Life and Work of Roberto Villanueva
N/A

A documentary film by filmmaker couple Egay Navarro and Rica Concepcion. It focuses on the life of Baguio artist Roberto Villanueva, known for his distinct approach to artmaking that included community participation.

Shaman Showman: The Life and Work of Roberto Villanueva

A Man Who Became Cinema
N/A

Masato Hara made his directorial debut in high school in 1968 and achieved a reputation as a young prodigy. Many years later, he continues to make films and show his old experimental 'live-screening' films, but is saddled with massive debts. This film follows eight years in his life.

A Man Who Became Cinema

2018
Our Bomb Mission in Hiroshima
N/A

An unexploded bomb that the Americans dropped in the Philippines in their war against the Japanese was found in a river. It was transformed into a bell by the Ifugaos and sent back to Japan. This time as a gesture of peace.

Our Bomb Mission in Hiroshima

1995
Yan Ki Made in Hongkong
N/A

Documentary about the working poor in Hongkong.

Yan Ki Made in Hongkong

1980
Bulakna
N/A

An observation of post-colonial economic relations through the intersecting trajectories of two Filipino women: one preparing to leave her native island to work as a domestic in Europe, the other to return for good.

Bulakna

2025
Ode to Dreamers
N/A

A machine capable of recording ideas directly from the mind is invented, and an out-of-work comedian suffering from depression uses it to learn if he still has the gift to make people laugh.

Ode to Dreamers

2015
Takedera mon amour: Diary of a Bamboo Connection
N/A

Documentary about the meaning of bamboo.

Takedera mon amour: Diary of a Bamboo Connection

1991
Turumba
6.2

Kadu, a boy from Pakil, Laguna, experiences the dissolution of tradition as it gives way to capitalism in the form of Madame, a foreigner who initially came to their village as a customer during the Festival of Turumba.

Turumba

1981